Arts & Entertainment
Artist of the Week: Former Music Teacher Paints Inspired Landscapes
While many North Fork residents remember Patricia Feiler as a long-time music teacher at Southold School, many more are now recognizing her for her work as a painter.
As a music teacher Patricia Feiler enjoyed teaching her Southold students about the joys of music for 25 years, at the same time, she was actively studying art and, unbeknownst to her, preparing for her retirement.
Today Feiler is a landscape artist whose passion for the color and light of the North Fork fill her canvases. She considers herself an impressionist and uses local locations such as a farm stand in East Marion or a vineyard in Aquebogue to provide inspiration.
From the moment she retired from teaching in 2005, her focus shifted to her art. She studied with Long Island Academy of Fine Art founder Robert Armetta and her brought her right back to “square one” with pencil and paper.
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“The teacher in me was looking for a sequential course of learning,” she said.
She said she marvels at what she learned with just paper and pencil and it forced her to go back to the basic elements of line, form, and shadow. She will sometimes draw at a scene or work from a photograph. Sketching is essential to her work and she said she spends a lot of time sketching to determine if the painting will be long or horizontal.
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“I study a landscape just like a score of music,” Feiler said.
There’s a point when her paintings take on energy and life of their own and a session can go on for four or five hours. She said it could be tiring, yet her passion for painting makes it easy to be energized.
Feiler said she often is working on several paintings at the same time. However, she never forces herself to paint because she has a show coming up. She said she has to wait for the muse to inspire her. This spring she said, was just “full of color.”
Painting, for Feiler, is like a movie because there is constant motion. She has been known to show up with a gallery with a paint brush in her hand to add finishing touches, and added that her work is not finished until “it’s sold.”
“This was a great year in art for me. I’ve done very well. My paintings have been just flying off the wall,” Feiler said.
She said many people remember her as the Southold music teacher and are surprised she paints too. But to her, both music and painting provide daily inspiration.
Feiler currently has a show at the Rosalie Dimon Gallery at the Jamesport Manor Inn with an opening reception on Aug. 28 from 3 to 5 p.m. The show runs through Nov. 3.
